This guide is a rundown of how you can make the Soviet Union into the strongest player before WW2 is even due to begin. I've tested this overall strategy on V1.0 and the V1.1 Beta so far.

TL;DR: Take the USA!


If you do that, you'll end up with a game a bit like mine:




With that said, here's what to do.

So now you know to take the USA. You know they've got enough factories to more than double your output and crank your warmachine into overdrive!

First of all, deal with your research. The only thing that matters here is that you immediately begin your land doctrine. Stick to Mass Assault no matter what, because what counts is that you reduce your supply consumption as much as possible.

When attacking the USA, supplies aren't an issue once you have a strong offensive, but if you have bad supplies on the initial landings, you will sit in a stalemate against 40-ish wimpy divisions for a year!



Now that your tech is covered, take all the troops you have in Western Russia, group them up, remove the low-supply ones (Delete them if you want, they are just military police divisions), and then move all your troops to your east-coast ports (The Vladivostok region right under the Japanese Border).

Note: It may seem horrendous that all your units are suffering attrition in vladivostok, but it's the best place on the east coast. If you want to avoid too much attrition, try spreading your troops out while you wait (Make them garrison nearby provinces for a while or something like that). Don't try building infrastructure before attacking the USA as it just won't be worth the time it takes at the moment.


Next up is your equipment. Tanks are nice but you'll never fill the deficit in time, so put 15 factories in Infantry Equipment, 5 in Support Eq, 8 in Artillery, and then spread the rest between motorized and Tanks. You don't need new aircraft yet as the pre-existing aircraft will be more than enough for this conquest.


Next up you should remove all your naval orders, and replace it with 3 dockyards in Convoys and 3 dockyards in submarines. Place the submarines to deploy at Vladivostok.



From here, you'll want to ignore the usual Soviet Union tactics for building. Usually you'd be building nothing but Civ Factories, instead do nothing but Military Factories. Specifically around 4 regions of 4 factories (aim to be building 16-20 in your queue). You'll want a 2nd lane of Infantry Equipment up and then use the rest to bolster support equipment. This is to aid supplies during the American War.

If you want, you can build a dockyard or two as well, it might help depending on how much you want to rush this tactic.



Finally you will want to trade 1 civillian factory for 8 rubber from someone to keep motorized production up. This hurts the plan by using most of your convoys up initially but they'll recover in a few months with those 5 dockyards you built.


As for your national focus, I would recommend getting the Great Purge out of the way, even though it hurts your military a lot. Ultimately this is to stop you being crippled after taking the USA, because that way the Great Purge effects can end in 1938/1939. If you really need more factories, take one or two focuses to help that at first.


Now, you can proceed with the planning and execution!

Now you must prepare the invasion. As soon as possible, begin justifying war on any part of the USA! This takes quite a bit of time with so little World-Tension so don't even spend your political power on anything else until you've started this!

Next you want to take 6 units (ideally tanks but just avoid the damn cavalry) from your big army at Vladivostok (Should be around 85-92 units, depending how much you consider western Russia) and plan a naval invasion in Alaska.


In Alaska? Why not mainland USA?

If you are in V1.0 (or 1.0.1 hotfix) then you can do some maneuvering with your submarines to be able to control the west-coast waters. However in 1.1 this has been fixed so you can't patrol that far away from your ports. Hence you must invade the port in Alaska.

Go straight for the port, the USA rarely has troops there.


Ship Patrols

Now pay attention to the 2 fleets you have by default at Vladivostok. Use one to fill the first part of the naval invasion path in the waters and the 2nd for the other. Since you get 3 regions per fleet, this should let you get right into Alaska's port and keep supplies efficient.


If some of your new subs are ready, just keep them there for now. You need them later.

What you do until the declaration is done is up to you, but whatever you do try to avoid going over 30% world tension, as USA may go for their "The Giant Wakes" focus and suddenly be twice as difficult in the war.

By the time the justification is done, you should have made a few submarines and enough convoys for the invasion. Declare away!


It Is Time, Comrades!

Now that you are at war, immediately invade alaska. Your troops will make it there without a hitch 99.99% of the time as America really doesn't deploy to the west very fast (nor very well).

As soon as your troops are there, move the rest of the main army from vladivostok straight up to Alaska. Your supplies will look horrendous but it's fine, just keep getting Mass Assault doctrine tech.


Now you need to immediately plan another naval invasion, this time for the west coast of the USA. Go for a port because the USA only has 30-35 divisions still, and the AI will not garrison the entire west coast (It still prioritizes big cities mostly).

You'll now see the west-coast region in the water has none of your ships in it, so move your new submarines to Alaska and tell them to rebase there (CTRL+Click on the port whilst they are selected). From there you can tell them to patrol the west coast, clearing the way for your next invasion!


I've been told that sometimes the USA is completely wiping out people's ships when they try this part of the plan. I've honestly only had this happen once or twice after doing this in more than 15 games. All I can say is you should try to keep each part of the plan as close together as possible (After justifying the war, don't give The USA even a single day to react, be prepared to instantly attack!)
If you try to create extra tension before doing this invasion, the USA might be more proactive as well. The whole strategy here is to catch the AI off-guard and ultimately an invasion can get through 90% of the time.

Now you should have troops in mainland USA once that naval invasion has been done. You should have chosen tanks for your 6 units so you can quickly take a few surrounding territories whilst you wait as you move the main army into the USA. If you are ambitious, try taking a 2nd port to bolster supplies and spread out your line.


*Cue: Red Alert Hell March*

Now your whole army is here, and your supplies will become an issue soon. Quickly merge the armies and form a new front line. In V1.1 you should use the "aggressive" mode for executing AI plans, as casualties are irrelevant here.


Your goals now are as follows:

- Seize the nearest Vodka Distillery
- Spread out along the west coast for more ports
- Take the airbase at the northwest of the USA and move ALL of your non-naval-bomber aircraft there.


Once your aircraft arrive, put them all to use in the west-coast air region to give your troops the upper hand.



From here, you should have better supplies and be able to stomp on whatever the USA throws at you.

It is worth noting that eventually other democracies will send them support (Britain sends a few divisions usually, which is a free excuse to hurt their early-game by just encircling them), so don't take too long.


Now Go Forth and Conquer!


Your final goal is simple:

Rush the American War Machine before it rushes you.


Be as aggressive as possible, move in country-wide waves and quickly push the americans back, never let them dig in.
You wont make the USA capitulate until Washington DC falls, so you have to cover the whole country before the Allies gear up in 1939 or the USA will join them and squander your perfect industry.


If you do this right, odds are you will go to war with the USA in early 1937, be in mainland USA before the middle of '37, and the USA can capitulate before the middle of 1938.

If you get stuck against their defenses, just know your ultimate deadline is typically August 1939, but the USA can on rare occasion join the allies earlier (if that happens, bad luck and try again!).

Now the USA has capitulated. You'll do some repair work on the infrastructure and factories but after that, you'll be a serious Civllian-Factory war machine!


So what's next?

Well now it is up to you! Congrats on wiping out most of the Allied War Machine.

Now depending on what your plans are, you should decide what to do with your 90-or-so divisions in the US.
Personally I favor keeping 60 or so divisions there for defending the east-coast (and for taking Canada in the late-game). If you want to take the Allies on early, then keep them all there.


Be aware though that the German AI often realizes you have no border build-up, and especially on non-historic it may be inclined to attack you as soon as Poland falls. To counter this, just improve relations with Germany (Japan as well) and accept their pact and anti-capitalist event. Even if you want to crush them, it has to wait for you to build up with your new factories.


Now you will find yourself further behind in 1938 than you should be in terms of overall forces as you shouldn't have had much supplies for new units during this time, but that's alright because you'll be advancing so much faster from there on in.

You should switch to War Economy as soon as possible to max your civillian factories out, then focus on whatever war effort you choose.


With this many factories, it's even possible to simply build a massive wall of level 6 or level 7 forts along the Axis borders so they will never breach Russia after you get a 2nd army over there. Odds are you will also be able to focus much more on tanks now too, which is a big game-changer for the Russian army.



Either way, you are now the strongest player in the game. The USA will never create 600-1000 divisions to crush you or the Axis, and the Allies will play a war of attrition with the Axis powers.
Note this is a great excuse to get the achievement for making the whole world fascist, as you will probably never need any new members in the Comintern and you can change to the Russian Fascist Empire like I do after the main wars.


Now you're free to do as you wish, conquer all you want! Good Luck!

If you found this guide useful / helpful, please be sure to rate it positively and favorite it!

The USA keep deploying their navy when I go to invade them?

The biggest catch about this strategy is that it must not have delays. The USA will ultimately reposition a lot of their fleet to the west coast when they realize you've got naval presence there.
To counter this, you can try moving all of the Soviet fleets from europe over so you can hold a much more effective naval superiority. Also be sure to not have any time between each part of the plan (The moment you have the port in Alaska, immediately move your other army there, make sure they were already waiting at their ports in Russia, etc)

Update [23/08/16]

A lot of folks are still having issues with this, and I've tested it again myself and had friends try the guide. The AI can definitely anticipate a lot more than it should, so if you are genuinely unable to beat the USA navy, try deploying your navy at the last minute. Do not deploy any of it out of port until you are on the day you declare (give it a few hours to let them get the superiority laid down), this might stop the AI doing such blatant reactions sometimes.


The USA joined the allies!

Sometimes this just happens with bad luck I'm afraid. Seems to happen more often on historic gameplay than non-historic. If you or anyone else does other things to raise world tension enough, the USA joins either way usually. This just boils down to how quickly you can make them surrender as they should realistically never join if you don't attack anyone else and you get near Washington DC whilst it's still 1938.


The Philippines dragged me into a war with the Allies

This can be avoided by specifically asking to satellite the Philippines on the first turn of your peacedeal with the USA. That way you can demand any resources they have for free due to them being a puppet, and they will not continue a war with you afterwards.


Germany goes to war with me soon after this on non-historic mode!

The AI seems to be aware of you not having troops that can respond well to their offensive (it seems to be mostly concerned about border troops). As soon as the war with the USA is going well (by the time you have normal supplies and have the entire west coast), you should begin producing troops back in Russia and deploying them close to Europe (e.g. in Kiev or Moscow) then border up as soon as Germany takes Poland. You should also look to improve relations with Germany as this can slow down their desire to conquer you. A final trick is to rush Anti-Capitalist Diplomacy but that might hinder your research slots for longer than most would like.